World: Cockpit of Conflict

Little besides geography links the four countries that make up
modern-day IndochinaCambodia, Laos, North and South Viet Nam. For 20
centuries, neither foreign conquerors nor home-grown dynasts have ever
managed to persuade the peoples of the verdant, fertile peninsula to
collect themselves into a single nation. Indeed, long before the
present struggle engulfed them, their differences had led to a history
of prolonged and tangled conflicts.

The most constant influence on
the area's life, of course, has been China, where the forebears of most
present-day Indochinese lived before migrating south centuries before
Christ. On all too many occasions, the Heavenly Emperors...